That Time Schubert's Young Nun Had an Outdoor Birthday Celebration for Mozart's Commendatore...

All photos are by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, taken on April 8, 2024

So, just what do you get for the bass-voiced ghost with the most who literally is in need of nothing for his 86th birthday (as we count time)?

I did find die Konditorei -- a cake shop --

... where I might have bought some lovely German cakes within walking distance of me ...

... but it was closed for building repairs, and it was just as well, because the last time he had to explain that those who dine on the food of heaven have no need for the food of mortals, that didn't go so well for the person he explained it to ...

"Now, Frau Mathews, that's not fair ... hahahahahaha!"

"You see I got you the right present, didn't I -- Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Herr Möll! Gotcha!"

"Hahahahahahahahahhahahahaha!"

Today is April 11, 2024, and yes, there is a reason that scientists around the world are trying to figure out the report of dry thunderstorms rolling through four octaves in a clear blue sky over San Francisco, and social scientists will be studying for years how the actual Big One from 1906 will be remembered next Thursday, April 18, but somehow the Laughing Big One hit the city today, and for a few minutes, cameras all over the city caught people looking around somewhat confused, but then just relaxing into the laughter!

In reality, this fictional solution goes to the deeper question of why in a consumer society in the U.S. we think the answer to everything is getting more stuff. The minute someone in that older age group -- my father and grand old soldier are good examples -- says, "I don't need any more stuff," then one recognizes the end of the usefulness of things.

But I do remember caring for relatives with memory issues, and how I was advised: the important thing is to focus on making the present as loving and enjoyable as possible, for even with advancing memory loss, we all still have the present.

This is also a key to human life, because at the beginning of our lives, we have no long-term memory ... and all the way along, the past is finished and the future is not known to us although we can make plans for it. Yet when we are not deluded, we know: all we have to work with is now, and now is always an opportunity to give the gift of loving presence to each other.

The irony of my life, of course, is that I have spent two years removing myself from the presence of so many ... and, this week, another beloved teacher went on to direct gospel choir on high. Some of those in that circle popped up to make all sorts of demands of his "available" protege ... and thus will be dropped out of my presence at the appropriate time, because their demand-first approach means I cannot safely grieve in their presence.

And yet at the same time over the weekend I reconnected with an adult student of mine and paid the love forward for her birthday ... in this season of my life I have to remind myself often that while I cannot control what anyone else does, I only need to continue to walk in the more excellent way, and those not so walking can and will fall to my rear.

Now, this does not mean that the pain is not searing ... I went back to my heavy-duty Bach ... I had to remind myself of what I have learned to do ... I had to go back and listen to Schubert's "Du bist die Ruh" and turn that thought upward ... but upon finding this wonderful alto Jess Dandy singing it, also found her recording of Schubert's Die junge Nonne, or, "The Young Nun."

Although I am not a Catholic, a lot of the track of my life makes sense, considered from the point of view as a young woman who began her track walking away from the demands and temptations of the world to be in the service of God and humanity. It was not a decision that I made as an adult, though -- my whole family has been in Christian service for generations -- but in choosing the path I was guided onto, I have become as close to a Baptist nun with slight Lutheran leanings that my community provides ... and like the character in Schubert's song, this is the life in which I have found peace.

In realizing the above, I also have shed the idea that it mattered where I lived, and became more contented living in what W.E.B. DuBois described as "the most beautiful city of human habitation." I also settled a 27-year-old question: no, there was no need for me to run away to Germany and never come back. In accepting the orientation to understanding and fully choosing the life I had been called to, I have made the move I needed.

"And is that not a most remarkable young alto and young pianist -- Jess Dandy and Dylan Perez -- you know how I love these young artists, Frau Mathews!"

"I know -- why do you think I have them on today? You love to hear young artists, and I'm trying to get there!"

He laughed, and then we listened a second and a third time before resuming conversation.

"Tell me this, Frau Mathews: how does being a nun work in your denomination?"

"It doesn't," I said. "We don't have the ecclesiastical structure in the Baptist church, and definitely not in the African-American context. But, it is not necessary ... if you end up living a chaste, quiet, peaceful life of service, you end up in the same place, just minus the community ... but now that I am settling in on the reality I've been living in, and getting plenty of chances to practice not being pulled back into circles I don't fit any more, I have faith that will come."

He smiled gently.

"The quality of gospel music where I live now has been elevated tremendously since Mr. Charles Hudspeth arrived," he said as he passed me his ever-ready ethereal handkerchief, "but I know Heaven's gain comes with some pain to you. My deepest condolences are with you, Frau Mathews."

"Ich danke Sie," I said. "He is not lost to me, nor I to him, and I shall have my place in his new choir as I sang both soprano and alto at need in his earthly choir. What is hurting me is that the funeral is tomorrow, and I am glad I cannot go, because to even be in the room with some of the people I used to know as they have revealed their grasping, ravenous selves to me -- the shock of people explaining their chattel plans for me, to me. Barely a 'how are you,' barely a moment of expressing the mutual love -- but maybe the understanding and love was not ever mutual, and I just didn't know it."

"They are hurting and not thinking as clearly as they might, Frau Mathews, and they knew him much longer -- he is another peer of your father and I, and they knew him for long decades. There is another element you are too young to fully appreciate yet: every death of an aged peer or near-peer reminds one that death also must soon claim you."

"Thank you for the reminder, for I do see that among elders," I said. "I do want to be fair."

"And in being fair to others, Frau Mathews, you can practice our lessons from last year: compassion does not require you to put yourself in the way of harm unless and until you are called specifically to endure. Mr. Hudspeth is like me now: he has need of nothing from you. You have need of no one else to honor his memory and use all of what he taught you -- like this last weekend when you went and supported your own former student. He is another one who walked in the more excellent way, all the way home -- so, you honor him as you keep walking, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left into poisonous situations for you."

"That is my whole intent," I said. "It is enough."

"It is enough, mein kind. Is it not a beautiful day?"

"It is, and we know what to do with it!"

"Where are we going today?"

"So, I had an idea ... since we're not doing that big strawberry cake from Hahdough today ."

"Even for California it's too early for strawberries in this region, isn't it? -- and I didn't know there were yellow-flowered strawberries."

"It is, and there aren't -- those are mock strawberries, an edible cousin to the real thing. But what I had in mind was a location -- maybe not the shortcake, but ... ."

He thought about it, and then grinned and burst into his version of a song I had forgotten was young when he was young:

"We'll find our thrill -- bom ba BOM bom ba BOM -- on Strawberry Hill!"

So after a good laugh, we were off again to Blue Heron Lake on yet another lovely spring day, with Strawberry Hill in our sights ...

... and past my favorite "little falls"...

... to walk to the bottom of Huntington Falls ...

... and look up the staircase on the eastern side ...

... when not being distracted by the glory behind us...

... and I did take a moment to remember why I had been eyeing this hill and telling myself 'no' for a minute ... I had been around it enough times to realize that, like Buena Vista Hill, Strawberry Hill might well conceal itself in height. The difference was steepness. Strawberry Hill has natural features that are sheer. Huntington Falls and the staircase by it had been created by the most accessible eastern side, but climbing by the side of a waterfall tells you by itself: the hill, when Mr. Huntington came along, already looked like it could make for a good, high falls!

"It is at the limit of what you can do, Frau Mathews," my companion said. "You have been wise to forgo this hill when already tired. My concern for you would actually be when you come back down, already tired from the ascent. The stairs are high, and even though I am almost a foot taller than you, I would have noticed their largeness and steepness in my mortal days as well."

"When did you survey the hill?" I said.

"Frau Mathews, you have been eyeing it since our halcyon lessons in January. Of course I surveyed it then."

"I thought you weren't on my security detail!"

"Sometimes I forget, Frau Mathews. I am still only human, and it is my birthday ... you know I'm getting old!"

He grinned as I laughed -- he didn't look a day over 55.

"But seriously," I said. "You said it was at my limit -- but not past it."

"You can, Frau Mathews ... it will be challenging enough, however, to remind you of the struggles of 2022 and 2023."

"Oh, snap -- it's steep and long, isn't it?"

"With one surprise after another ... but the beauty of it is that there are many places to stop, and the views ... stunning! If we rest as we can, we can do it."

"Well, sir," I said, "let's do it!"

At about the first landing when I looked up again, I realized what he was talking about ... the falls curved back into the hill, and what I thought was halfway up was only a third ...

... but already, the view ...

... so up again ...

... and up some more ...

... and up some more ...

... and up some more ...

.. and indeed, the physical challenge to that point had brought me to the recall point of how hard my personal climb in life had been for two years ... those moments of "How am I going to get through this ... I made it ... oh, no, just a place of relief, there's more ... how am I going to handle this?"

Finally to see the top of the falls ...

... and looking back at last, past the top ...

The epitome of disappointment: finally pulling that staircase and realizing -- nope, not even close to the top of the hill -- followed by the epitome of surprise to find the header pool for Huntington Falls, deep and serene, the wild strawberries for which it was named blooming along with blackberries around it ...

... and its deep, calm appearance reminded me of my companion, who had been doing his echo work all the way to there, just like the One Who had called me on the climb out of my losses in 2022 and 2023 had never left me, and had lifted me when necessary ... on this climb, though it was too narrow for us to climb in double file, I had felt my companion touch me on the elbow occasionally to let me know he was behind me and I thus could not fall back, and once or twice on a very high stair compared to the length of my short legs he had put his arm around me to assure I would not fall and even gave me that extra lift ... and had stopped me on a landing to observe: though there did seem to be an easier, more northerly ascent, that way was blocked off, and only from above could one see the fate that would have awaited one below.

I might have started singing "Amazing Grace" at that point ... through many dangers, toils, and snares ... but I knew I had to marshal my strength, for indeed, this was at the limit of what I could do.

At the pond we rested awhile, and then I sized up the rest of the hill.

"Still quite a way to go," he said.

"I didn't come up here to not do it all," I said.

"I know, Frau Mathews -- that is not your way," he said. "Up we go, then!"

At this point, the sounds of the fall and the lake fell away, and I began to have the feeling I often did when climbing Buena Vista Hill, surprised by its beautiful turns ...

... and new looks at familiar vistas ...

... along with the shock of perspective: that high up, that fast because of the steepness, for the lake was far, far below ...

And now at eye level stood other hills I had designs upon ... the Sutro Greenbelt, Mt. Davidson, and I think Grandview Park...

... so then Grandview Park and Mt. Davidson got their own shot...

... as did much of the entire Sunset District's southern side, including its most prominent church ...

... before at last, I topped Strawberry Hill!

Far off, the Presidio and the Golden Gate Bridge shone in the sun ...

... the Marin Headlands smiled at me from across the blue bay, awaiting the day I had topped all of San Francisco's finest hills...

And, in a scene that reminded me of Tristan and Isolde's end, the silver-misted Pacific Ocean shone far off through two embracing trees ...

... and it was just after that that I noticed: the path went no further west. The hill on that side was all trees and far too rugged to climb down. But, what an end of the line!

So, we turned around to a path covered in black shadow lace, shot through with jewel tones --

-- and came to rest for a time.

My companion had been deep in thought at times, lost in wonder with me in the beauties of the walk at other times, but upon our resting, his thoughts flowered out into a warm smile.

"So, about you knowing not to buy me a big slice of some wonderful German cake -- ich danke dir. This is far better, although I would advise you to be careful bringing any other man of my age up this way!"

"I'll take that advice for me as a 43-year-old at this point!"

We had a good laugh about that, and then he continued.

"Now we can double back to an even deeper lesson, which has to do with how I have gotten the wonderful present of walking through a California spring on my 86th birthday. Why me, Frau Mathews? Leave aside all the deeper predestination bits we have discussed before -- of course it was planned before the world began -- but before you were thinking about all that, why me?"

"You understood the assignment, even though it was not staged as Mozart intended it. As your other admirers have also said, you are perhaps the most majestic and at the same time the most sympathetic Commendatore of your time, which means you actually represent Who you are supposed to represent as a human messenger -- all His majestic yet urgent offer of grace, mercy, and forgiveness, all His inexorable, terrible verdict of justice when that offer is refused, and also even the sorrow that His heart feels, for it is not His will that any should perish, though perish they shall, unrepentant. Technically, you should not have been staged like that, and technically, you might have held character a little better, but, when handed the whole part from mercy to judgment, you understood the assignment, and Who you represented."

He considered this, and then smiled gently.

"You know that when I have called you Commendatore's daughter by way of analogy in the past, I did not mean that you were Donna Anna," he said.

"I know," I said. "You were talking about the spiritual resemblance, and how I am inclined to use my strong grip for too long and then have to drag folks off when I'm not really built for that."

"Correct, Frau Mathews. Here is what I did not say then: the fact that you were able to follow through all the way means you also understood the complete assignment, and the inexorable necessity of it. My sympathetic but utterly inescapable Commendatore mirrors who you are at the core. You are a commanding woman, but humble, and loving, and will go the extra mile and more. You have more terror of justice for people than they often have for themselves -- you see the desperate danger of their situation and will go all out to try to open their eyes. And yet at the same time, when time is up with you, or if harm is threatened to those you are sworn to protect, people find out the Young Nun is still the Commendatore's warrior daughter!"

"Look, I try to keep it real with everybody -- like the old saying goes, 'What you see is what you get, cuz' Frau Mathews don't take no mess!'"

The Laughing Big One resumed in San Francisco, down through Strawberry Hill to the bedrock beneath Blue Heron Lake! When finally the author of that recovered, his joyful face settled into a tender look toward me.

"The question of 'why me' was rhetorical, Frau Mathews. Mine is an understanding voice to you, for when when you studied what you could of my life, it bore out much of what you sensed in my Commendatore. This why my being here as the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past is so interesting: you took all ghost stories from Dickens, Shakespeare, and Mozart with Da Ponte, and all their fictional incursions from the next world to here, and said, 'The next world in fiction is underrepresented in efforts to help those seeking to do right -- so let me go get Commendatore, and roll him up with Gurnemanz, and let him fill in for Greatheart in the second part of Pilgrim's Progress -- let him walk with the Young Nun, and thus let him help her and her friends get home, like Greatheart does!"

"You know, I didn't remember it until you said it, but yes, Greatheart from the second half of Pilgrim's Progress is a deep influence. I was very impressed with how he protects Christiana and her family and all the people that they gather along the way on their way to the Heavenly City ... the thing is, he didn't show up for real in my community often enough, so I became that person for the others."

"I know, my dear great-hearted daughter of music. But that said, if there were no theological sticking points, Frau Mathews, you would find more women of your like in the more serious-minded orders and convents. For the sake of discussion, why not become a nun?"

I considered this, and then shook my head.

"The problem is not even the theology," I said. "It is in the same line of reasoning by which I would opt to give some big, kindhearted old comedian of the opera stage a good laugh as a birthday gift."

He chuckled.

"I see you have found out my big secret, Frau Mathews. Basso profundo and basso buffo are somewhat adjacent provided one has sufficient strength and lightness in the high third of a bass voice, and at the beginning I took all the roles I could get. Basso buffo roles, though often overlooked, will certainly teach one to pull the complexity out of a character. They do not always appeal to ambition, but are wonderful for really learning how to act and sing at the same time."

"Yet this is what I am trying to get at -- what you wanted was to sing, and to learn how to do it well. And so you did, and went through the doors that opened before you, faithfully, humbly, kindly. That was enough."

He stood silently, and then took out another ethereal handkerchief, but then decided not to use it although his eyes became as beautiful and full as the header pool we had passed.

"Indeed, mein kind," he said, "you have been listening and learning."

"Your voice is among the most beautiful God ever made," I said. "You were blessed and faithful in the blessing of making your life a harmony with it, and so, your students -- some of us coming a little late, but still -- could listen, and learn, and know that they can as well. Ich höre Sie, Herr Möll. Ich höre Sie."

Ethereal tears slid down his face, each twinkling a rainbow of joy before falling to the earth -- yet the cataract of deep feeling pooling up behind them was so immense that the hill began to quiver slightly as he slowly but surely began to lose his "dimmers" and began to glow.

"Ich danke dir, Frau Mathews," he said, his voice hushed but in a timbre that presaged what he said next. "I shall have to leave you for a little while, for I am about to exceed the limits of even Q-Inspired's generous physics. But before I return home for a little while, I will tell you this. When you became part of my assignment, I could see that in spite of all that you were going through a year ago -- it has been a year, my dear, as of tomorrow -- you intended to stay on the right path, and were listening and looking for every encouragement you could. But I could not know if you would continue to listen. I am still human. The future was not mine to know. All I could do is walk with you and echo the Voice you truly are called to follow.

"You listened, Frau Mathews, and so you are here. My joy, and that of Him Who permitted me to become part of your life, cannot be contained in this earth, which is why I must go for a time to the only realm that can contain it -- that a year later you are healed, and are walking in peace and joy and rest, and have the wisdom and strength to not be lured back to your hurt -- and then, when grief again came like a storm, and was compounded by the hurtful behavior of others that denied you the safety to grieve with them, what you did, Frau Mathews -- when I saw that you returned to Father Bach, and grasped that strength that he had to walk on to continue to bless those he was called to -- that you explored the melody of "Die Seele ruht in Göttes Handen" and truly blended it into your own musical output --.

My improvisation on "Die Seele ruht in Göttes Handen" here!

" -- while making such a lived harmony with it by doubling down on blessing the students and elders on both sides of your weekend -- oh, that you have learned, like Father Bach, that even grief, resting in faith, can be powerfully used in blessing, and that you have walked in this already -- that is so far above what I could have asked, or thought -- *ach, mein Herz jubelt für dich, meine Töchter! Mein Herz jubelt für dich!"

Then he looked upward, his face enraptured with unspeakable gratitude -- unspeakable to this earth, anyhow, lest large parts of it be shaken to dust by the infra-sonic portion of his immortal voice -- and vanished!

Yet he would return in due time. I was completely assured about it, and continued on my way downward when I was ready. The curve back eastward was pleasant to walk, and I laughed upon meeting something like the ghost of beekeeping past on the bank of the header pool -- Strawberry Hill had a lot going on, apparently!

Because I stopped, I then saw the quiet bench that all but spring itself forgot --

-- and there again rested to prepare myself for the steep stairs downward.

My thoughts here turned again to the irony of my life. In 2022 and 2023, I would not have had the energy for Strawberry Hill ... but in turning more and more away from the circle I thought I had, I had lost all manner of burden, gained all manner of strength. As I thought back over a decade and more, it had ever been so. I also had rarely been lonely; as I was in the way, such companions as I truly needed had found me, and I them. But even when not, I never felt more joy than when alone with God and His Creation, unless on those rare days of collective worship when everyone had truly put the cares of the world aside and focused on thanksgiving and praise. Most of those days, as it happened, had not been Sundays.

I then remembered my grand old soldier ... often times when walking, gratitude and praise toward the Lord we both loved had followed naturally in and out of our conversations ... and he was much more voluble than me, much more likely to be considered a disturbance of whatever because of that huge bass voice in a tall, still-fit, dark-skinned African American male frame. I had been fitted to be his companion in the sense of not being another person who wanted to silence him. We had given each other the latitude of being, in full, and he had gone so far as to do what King Marke had done for Queen Isolde: renounce his desire for me, and not take me as his wife, because he knew that would not be the best for me. He and I had been around Stow Lake. He had introduced it to me ... but Strawberry Hill I had to climb alone.

This led me to another thought about the future, away from love lost, and grief, although of course, that was going to keep coming ... but along the way: love as the latitude to be, in full. My bass-voiced companion had sung in Brahms of it, and Brahms had quoted it: "When the perfect has come ... then shall I know even as I am known." The perfect there is love, the greatest of all, in which there is no fear of knowing, and being known.

I thought then, and smiled about it, that I was going to be alone primarily for quite some time. It had taken years for my grand old soldier and I to build the trust necessary, in a society obsessed with superiority and control, to love like that. It would take YEARS for anyone else to convince me that he could love me like that. By comparison, Strawberry Hill was a gentle stroll! My grand old soldier had raised the bar very high ... but, that too had left latitude for me to have friends who also were walking onward, and to be loving whenever meeting as friends. These times were widely spread apart, but I needed that "apart" time, too.

The review of all these thoughts brought me here: love, of friends and of a husband if I chose to take one, would give me space to be known and be supported, and space to know and support. From this point, I needed not to think about what I had escaped in the previous years except that it was not love. Not that there had not been love in the midst, but love will not be made a chattel of profit and status-seeking pursuits, and the demand always comes for that submission. But I would brook no such demands, and from this point forward would only allow myself the company of those who neither made nor tolerated such demands. If that meant I passed most of the rest of my life with the Lord and His Creation when not working and caring for those I chose to minister to, that would be just fine, because I had never lacked and would never lack the people I needed to meet, along the way.

"Take your staff and go!" -- it came to mind from Brahms's "Mit vierzig Jahren" just then, and I went on around the header pool, nothing doubting. The Ghost of Musical Greatness materialized into step beside me just before the descent of the steps by Huntington Falls.

"You were just that sure I would get back on time, Frau Mathews," he said, with a smile.

"Just that sure," I said, smiling back.

"There's a bit of a crowd -- wait a moment, Frau Mathews --."

"Let me clear these here onto the landings -- "EXCUSE US!"

When your companion has a voice like that, folks move -- so, down we went, with him dazzling their dazed faces with his smile, and then dazing them again with his double-deep purring of "Thank you." He went before me this time, so I had no concern about falling forward although the descent was as difficult as the ascent. Yet, upon our stopping, the landings offered up a few more ravishing views:

When we got to the last great landing again ...

... he, going before me, now chose for me a southerly alternative route of stairs that would have been longer going up, but was more gradual with smaller steps going down, with the Chinese Pavilion in the distance:

So, by this gentler, shaded path lined with beautiful flowers, I at last came down on the other side of the path by the falls.

Not a moment too soon, as well ... indeed Strawberry Hill had tested me to the limit, and it would be some days before I walked again, for we were not yet done ... but at the bridge that in January had triggered such grief, now I thought I saw a window...

... and the end of this strenuous journey came into sight from the bridge ...

... as gold dust appeared to be scattered upon the emerald waters...

... coming from my favorite little falls ...

... and light itself appeared to be falling from the hill onto the water in a new great falls as we neared the boathouse again...

... for the way before me, in my heart, was clear and full of glorious light in this new spring.

"My heart rejoices for you, Frau Mathews ... but I have to get you home before I get carried away again -- ach, eine bessere Idee -- it is a long walk to your home, Frau Mathews, and I have a better idea. May I carry you away?"

"Well," I said, "it wouldn't be the first time. You may."

When the boat nearest us had its line of sight obscured --

... my companion drew me into his embrace and did what he wanted to do: danced me up along the arc of that light we had seen hitting the water so brilliantly, and then caught the breeze blowing toward my house. I was so delighted by this and yet so tired that when I relaxed I fell asleep, and woke up at my door, his gentle landing enough to gently awaken me. His expression was both very happy and very tender as he looked down at me after I got my door unlocked.

"I appreciate the latitude you gave me to get completely carried away with joy and return when I was not going to wipe out your entire city," he said, with a chuckle. "I did not intend to give you that lesson on how true love works, but you picked it up anyway."

"I appreciate that you honored my trust, and before that gave me the latitude of even being here when no celebration compares to your daily experience where you live now .. and before that, left a life legacy with plenty of room in it for me to learn and grow, as person seeking to follow the more excellent way in this world."

He smiled.

"I will give you just a bit more latitude, Frau Mathews -- did you not complete a major milestone in your career as an educator yesterday, and by this time next week, will you not have begun two more? I would have thought we might also have celebrated all that!"

"Well, yes ... but I haven't processed all that yet. There's always a lag, emotionally, for me ... the cognitive dissonance of having needed to shut so many people out that I wanted to benefit ... it's getting better, but it's still there ... the energy it takes because in some ways I'm still not getting proper support by those in this new process, and then just the loss of my mentor and the behavior around that ... the last seven days have been Strawberry Hill. I needed the relief of this today, and then to rest."

"You have the latitude, Frau Mathews. Be loved just as you are, where you are, kindly, and with understanding, and respond in kind. All the rest will be shown to you, right on time, as you are going in the more excellent way to which you are called. That is the lesson, and upon that note, I leave you, with my thanks, again, for the lovely birthday climb."

"Thank you for coming. Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!"

"Ich danke dir, meine Töchterlein. Auf Wiedersehen!"